” The architecture …/… will be a means of modifying present conceptions of time and space… It will be a means of knowledge and a means of actions.” 
Gilles Ivain alias Ivan Chtcheglov, 1958

We act to defend architecture that is plural, used, complex, diverse, real, and alive; architecture that is about action and interaction, formation and deformation, transformation, and appropriation.

Situation Room as a playground for [re] creation, collective action, active occupation, open demonstration, and social games was an intuitive, interactive and collective performance, showcasing everyday life tools and knowledge Directory. For the architecture of process, of fabrication, reaction, and interaction, members of EXYZT inhabited the gallery space, making use of the furnishings as though it were a domestic space.

More than showing past projects, we chose to set up a platform for creation and solidarity. We also invite people to transform the classic use of the gallery, to experiment diversity of programs and activities with cheap materials such as moving boxes, activated by the Storefront staff.

We propose a platform for action, defending an architecture that is alive. EXYZT shakes up the idea of architecture as an independent field. Working on experimental projects, EXYZT invites architecture, video, graphic-design, botany, and any other concept to become devices of expression and creation.

Like a series of disparate notes, ready-to-assemble elements were put together in situ to create this modular, domestic place, rapidly assembled constructions to create and augment a social space. Little by little, each limb of this strange apartment grew new functions, allowing its users to do more and more things, to occupy and work in its ever-changing space. After the basic living space has been assembled, essential urban infrastructure was gradually added: water, electricity, radio, TV, Internet, etc… Once complete, a variety of individual modules occupy the gallery space to be used for a moment, a day, or a whole night. Lightness, speed, and flexibility were essential ingredients of the set-up.

The collective carried out temporary setups. Each project is in line with precise and determined time and special frame. The units could be shaped and rearranged to become a living and sitting space, a workspace equipped with a desk, computers, and tools, or a dining room, among other forms. From week to week, the space evolved, taking on ephemeral forms and functions. The situation became the physical medium through which a creative and collective game was expressed. The series of projects questioned the relationship between public and private and encouraged the audience to move from being a spectator to an actor too.

EXYZT invited the audience to reconsider occupied areas in a well-defined time-frame. The collective was invited to conceive and organize each project as a ludic playground where cultural behaviours and shared stories related, mixed and mingled.

Created in 2003 as the initiative of five architects, they produced and organized a first self-construction and self-documented project on an abandoned plot of land in Parc de la Villette in Paris. By opening up to various fields, the collective group attempts to render architecture into a different perspective.

Our team is now a community of people who have chosen to act under the same principle of sharing knowledge and abilities, imagining the environment as the terrain of a participatory game, a site for play and appropriation, creating ‘transient micro ambiances’ as Guy Debord described the constucted situation.

Construction will constitute the first movement. Act!

Text by Philippe Rizzotti & Dimitri Messu